Short Fiction

sleety blast from the north. He sang them ruin and death and the sun burning out to darkness.

When he ceased, and he and Sathi left the half-shattered city, none stirred to follow. None dared who were still alive. It seemed to the two of them, as they struck out over the snowy plains, that the volcano behind was beginning to grumble and throw its flames a little higher.

IX

He stood alone in the gardens of Ryvan’s palace looking out over the city. Perhaps he thought of the hard journey back from the Dark Lands. Perhaps he thought of the triumphant day when they had sneaked back into the fastness and then gone out again, the Piper of Killorn and Red Bram roaring in his wake to smash the siege and scatter the armies of Ganasth and send the broken remnants fleeing homeward. Perhaps he thought of the future⁠—who knew? Sathi approached him quietly, wondering what to say.

He turned and smiled at her, the old merry smile she knew but with something else behind it. He had been the war-god of Killorn and that left its mark on a man.

“So it all turned out well,” he said.

“Thanks to you, Kery,” she answered softly.

“Oh, not so well at that,” he decided. “There were too many good men who fell, too much laid waste. It will take a hundred years before all this misery is forgotten.”

“But we reached what we strove for,” she said. “Ryvan is safe, all the Twilight Lands are. You folk of Killorn have the land you needed. Isn’t that enough to achieve?”

“I suppose so.” Kery stirred restlessly. “I wonder how it stands in Killorn now?”

“And you still want to return?” She tried to hold back the tears. “This is a fair land, and you are great in it, all you people from the north. You would go back to⁠—that?”

“Indeed,” he said. “All you say is true. We would be fools to return.” He scowled. “It may well be that in the time we yet have to wait most of us will find life better here and decide to stay. But not I, Sathi. I am just that kind of fool.”

“This land needs you, Kery. I do.”

He tilted her chin, smiling half sorrowfully into her eyes. “Best you forget, dear,” he said. “I will not stay here once the chance comes to return.”

She shook her head blindly, drew a deep breath, and said with a catch in her voice, “Then stay as long as you can, Kery.”

“Do you really mean that?” he asked slowly.

She nodded.

“You are a fool too,” he said. “But a very lovely fool.”

He took her in his arms.

Presently she laughed a little and said, not without hope, “I’ll have a while to change your mind, Kery. And I’ll try to do it. I’ll try!”

Sargasso of Lost Starships

I

Basil Donovan was drunk again. He sat near the open door of the Golden Planet, boots on the table, chair tilted back, one arm resting on the broad shoulder of Wocha, who sprawled on the floor beside him, the other hand clutching a tankard of ale. The tunic was open above his stained gray shirt, the battered cap was askew on his close-cropped blond hair, and his insignia⁠—the stars of a captain and the silver leaves of an earl on Ansa⁠—were tarnished. There was a deepening flush over his pale gaunt cheeks, and his eyes smoldered with an old rage.

Looking out across the cobbled street, he could see one of the tall, half-timbered houses of Lanstead. It had somehow survived the space bombardment, though its neighbors were rubble, but the tile roof was clumsily patched and there was oiled paper across the broken plastic of the windows. An anachronism, looming over the great bulldozer which was clearing the wreckage next door. The workmen there were mostly Ansans, big men in ragged clothes, but a well-dressed Terran was bossing the job. Donovan cursed wearily and lifted his tankard again.

The long, smoky-raftered taproom was full⁠—stolid burgers and peasants of Lanstead, discharged spacemen still in their worn uniforms, a couple of tailed greenies from the neighbor planet Shalmu. Talk was low and spiritless, and the smoke which drifted from pipes and cigarettes was bitter, cheap tobacco and dried bark. The smell of defeat was thick in the tavern.

“May I sit here, sir? The other places are full.”

Donovan glanced up. It was a young fellow, peasant written over his sunburned face in spite of the gray uniform and the empty sleeve. Olman⁠—yes, Sam Olman, whose family had been under Donovan fief these two hundred years. “Sure, make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, sir. I came in to get some supplies, thought I’d have a beer too. But you can’t get anything these days. Not to be had.”

Sam’s face looked vaguely hopeful as he eyed the noble. “We do need a gas engine bad, sir, for the tractor. Now that the central powercaster is gone, we got to have our own engines. I don’t want to presume, sir, but⁠—”

Donovan lifted one corner of his mouth in a tired smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I could get one machine for the whole community I’d be satisfied. Can’t be done. We’re trying to start a small factory of our own up at the manor, but it’s slow work.”

“I’m sure if anyone can do anything it’s you, sir.”

Donovan looked quizzically at the open countenance across the table. “Sam,” he asked, “why do you people keep turning to the Family? We led you, and it was to defeat. Why do you want anything more to do with nobles? We’re not even that, any longer. We’ve been stripped of our titles. We’re just plain citizens of the Empire now like you, and the new rulers are Terran. Why do you still think of us as your leaders?”

“But you are, sir! You’ve always been. It wasn’t the king’s fault, or his men’s, that Terra had so much more’n we did.